BloggerForce: Three Step Website Optimisation Engine
More and more people are looking to the web today to make their buying decisions,
and hence companies are looking for ways to optimize their websites for high rankings
on search engines. Optimizing the website is the first step in attracting more visitors
and ultimately selling more products and services. This is a great step to increase
revenue through your online marketing efforts, but not the only one. Building a
website which is appealing to Search engines and visitors alike is a demanding job.
Even though it pays to make your site easy for search engines to find and index,
the job is easier said than done. The fact is that it takes more than increased
website traffic to drive your organization's sales and marketing goals. A website
rich in content that evokes a positive response from site visitors is the foremost
goal. Relevant content on your website delivers pertinent information and emotionally
connects visitors to your organization. Since the eventual aim of all this exercise
is to increase sales, it is imperative to translate all this positive association
into action. This can only be achieved if the site contains relevant content which
not only attracts and engages humans, but also registers optimally with search engines
and the spiders they use to crawl and index your website. To build a site which
is appealing to humans and spiders is not an easy task. The spiders are driven by
logic and algorithms, and the humans by emotion and personal preferences and needs.
By means of this article, we will try to put in place a three step process for creating
meaningful content that can deliver higher search engine rankings while at the same
time engaging human beings and influencing the buying process.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
It is an open secret that Search engine providers closely guard their algorithms
and also effect frequent changes in them. As a result, Spiders are choosy about
what they read, how they crawl through a site, and what they index. No wonder many
companies turn to professional SEO practitioners for help. Yet, all of the strategizing
in the world over alt tags and Meta descriptions cannot provide a strong base for
effective search engine optimization. Key search phrases which are relevant and
which provide precise information to Search engines about the website, are required.
It also means using these key phrases in meaningful content that educates, inspires,
and elicits responses from site visitors.
Step 1: Selecting the relevant Key Phrases
Search engines move through the content of the website and cut it down to certain
short form key words and key phrases. These Key words and key phrases then provide
inferences about the information contained on your website, and its appropriateness
for different searchers to the search engines. The world of keywords is constantly
changing and search engines are frequently changing their algorithms. Nonetheless,
any discussion of creating content for a website that you want to rank high on search
engines has to start with keywords.
Key Phrases are preferred
More often than not, popular keywords identify who you are and what you do, but
most stand-alone words are too broad and vague to produce required results. Hence
it suits our needs best to look for specific key phrases, rather than keywords.
For example you provide ERP software for manufacturers. “ERP,” “manufacturing,”
and “software” will all produce large numbers of listings but still won’t attract
highly targeted prospects if used alone. The phrases “ERP software” or “manufacturing
software,” however, should produce a more targeted group of listings and higher-quality
prospects.
Selecting Key Phrases
Selecting the right Key phrases is extremely important if search engines are to
see your site as relevant. You must use phrases that closely identify with the unique
attributes of your business. At the same time, you also must use the most popular
phrases that searchers use.
A balance between popularity and specificity is best.
|
Popular Keyword |
More specific Keyword |
|
Research |
Forensic research |
|
Sales volume |
Insurance sales volume |
|
ERP software
|
ERP software training |
|
Detroit advertising agency
|
Detroit healthcare advertising agency |
|
Badminton courts
|
Indoor badminton courts |
Play reporter
A Search engine marketing expert, advises clients to think like
a reporter and ask the questions who, what and
where. If your keywords can answer these questions, and also a
why, when and how, you’ve taken
a big step toward success.
Consider motivation
Motivation is another key consideration while selecting key phrases. Someone searching
for “real estate agents” probably has a different motivation from someone searching
for “real estate listings.” If you’re a real estate agent, chances are the first
prospect is the one you are looking for.
Evaluate popularity and competitiveness
To evaluate the popularity and competitiveness of a key phrase
is the next important step.
A Search engine optimization firm can guide and help through this process of evaluation.
In fact, helping you research and choose effective key phrases is one of the areas
where search engine optimization firms can be of most value. There are research
tools such as Wordtracker which can be of further help in this regard.
Visit the competition
It is always a wise idea to Visit sites with similar products and services to see
what key phrases they use. Even better is to go to your customers and ask them what
key phrases they use to search products or services which they require. The phrases
your customers use to seek products and services can be the most effective key phrases
for your website.
Use your customers’ language
Leave the business plan language in the boardroom and use the language
your customers use to define your organization.
If you’re choosing key phrases like “sales optimization experts,” while potential
buyers are searching for “telemarketing companies,” you may have a problem.
Check your list for effectiveness
When you have a list of relevant key phrases ready, search them
in real time to check the results or listings which they produce. Now research those
listings as well. Gradually you will have a solid list of key phrases that have
been tested for viability. Both Google‘s AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing have
tools to help you evaluate potential keyword traffic. In addition, research tools,
such as Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com), can be helpful here as well.
Consider a small pay-per-click campaign as a test
Pay per click programs, such as those offered by Google or Yahoo,
are often an inexpensive way to test keywords.
For example, you can easily buy the keywords “trademark” and “trade mark” to see
if there are differences in quantity and quality of response.
In a matter of days, you can have results that feed back into your site’s new content
plan. The same information might take three to six months to gather if you had to
wait for a natural search optimization campaign to show results. Since it is difficult
to optimize a page for too many variations of the same word, many organizations
combine paid and non-paid programs.